The Shiner
by Mstar the Cat Demon
Summary: A strange ghost appears in Suze’s room one day. The thing is, she claims that she’s not a ghost. She’s actually a Mediator in a deep coma, hanging around until her body wakes back up. Mostly she annoys Suze until news reaches them that her body’s going to


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The Shiner

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Prologue: The Ghost Spirit Girl

Damn, she's back. "What, Simon? Do I annoy you?" she asked in that antagonizing tone of voice she has.

"Let's just say that's an understatement," I snapped. The girl leaning against my bedroom door was probably the most irritating creature on the face of the planet- no, in the entire _universe_. Even including my stepbrother Brad and Sister Ernestine.

Anyways, back to the girl, I just want her to disappear. But then she actually _does_, and then reappears someplace else. If you guessed that she's a ghost, you'd actually be wrong. She claims that she's a spirit, although I hardly see the difference.

"A ghost is a soul that the former body of which has died. A _spirit_ is a soul that the body of which is still alive, but the spirit has been pulled out of it and the body is lying uninhabited or taken over by another soul," she had explained.

"Oh," I had responded tonelessly, as intelligent as usual. "So what happened to you?"

"It's a long story," she answered with a sigh. "And frankly, I don't feel like explaining all of it, but I suppose I'll tell you the basics of it." Apparently, when she had been alive, or awake, or whatever, she too had been a mediator. "Mediator being a general term, of course," she had started explaining again. "In truth, there are four types of mediators. The first type isn't even in our class, really. They're Mediums, you know, psychics, normally able to communicate with and sense the dead, and some of the more powerful even able to exorcise ghosts, but they can't actually see or touch them like us.

"Then there are the ones known as Seekers. I believe that priest at the Mission is one of these. They can see, touch, and communicate with ghosts and/or spirits and are especially skilled at exorcisms. However, they can not leave their body at will, as we do, and must exorcise themselves to do so. Although they can last longer outside their body than a normal person can, their body will still shut down if not on life support after about twenty-four hours after them leaving it.

"The third type is your type. Yours, de Silva's, Slaski's, and Slater's. I believe you already know the term, Shifter. You all have all the abilities of seekers, plus, you can shift in and out of your body, the planes of the living and the dead, and along the fourth dimension. There are also several other abilities that I'm sure you are not aware of." She smiled either at me being so overwhelmed by all this information or at what she was about to say next.

"The last, and most powerful type, is that of my own."

"Which is?" I asked tiredly. I really need to learn how to tune her out, like I do with David, when she starts to ramble.

"Shiners. And my being one is why I'm currently in _this_ state of being. You see, we shiners have all the abilities of shifters, but with so much more. One of the abilities giving us our namesake. You haven't encountered a rogue spirit have you?" she asked with a rather evil grin. Well it wasn't necessarily _evil_, but it certainly was less than innocent. I shook my head as she continued, "Rogue spirits are ghosts or spirits that have been contaminated with some dark or evil force. They're nasty. _Very_ nasty. They suck out people's souls. Be glad it's not your job to deal with them."

"Whose job is it then," I inquired.

It was a rather stupid question, now that I think about it, for she answered, "Mine, stupid. Us shiners are rare. I think it's believed that there are only one or two of us per continent, excluding Antarctica. I suppose it's our job to keep an eye on the rest of you, you know, making sure that you don't abuse your power and stuff, and to deal with the rogues. The reason we're called shiners is because of our ghost-handling abilities. Basically, it makes us kind of shine with this silvery white light.

"I was dealing with an extremely strong rogue, so strong that it was almost too much for me. I beat the sucker, but it had taken so much of a toll, that I fell into a coma so my body could recuperate. There's some force around it right now, so that other ghosts and spirits can't take it over. I'll know when it's ready for me to come back."

"But won't all this cut a whole bunch of years off your life?" I had questioned. If Dr. Slaski was right, it would.

"Nah, it won't," she replied offhandedly, stretching out on my bed, which she had forced me off of. "Unlike you shifters, shiners are pretty much guaranteed atleast a century to live. Since there's so few of us, and there's a new one of us born like only once or twice every hundred years or so, we pretty much have to stick around a while. So basically, we can do all the stuff you shifters can plus more, only with out the shortened life span." Dang, that's not fair. I hope other shiners aren't as annoying as her. I mean, it would suck to have some _that_ annoying around for _that_ long.

That's pretty much the conversation that resulted when I first met Mara Kehari. Apparently, she has this super-high IQ that was a result of a hit in the stomach her mom had received while Mara was still inside of her. They had thought that it would cause brain damage, because it had hit Mara's still-developing head and everything, but instead of making her slower than others, it had made her faster, in the mental area, that is.

Mara was black-haired, with red streaks going through it, pale-skinned, and has these really creepy, silvery-blue eyes. She said that all shiners have black hair, pale skin, and eyes that color. I had asked her if she had actually met any other shiners, and she had told me that she hadn't. She _had_, however, done tons of research on her kind, and that was what records had to show. She was wearing what had been her favorite outfit while she was awake or alive or whatever she was. It consisted of a red, silk, Chinese-style shirt with phoenixes embroidered on in gold. She was also wearing black cargo flares and some black and red high tops that the white parts at the ends of them had been decorated with red and black checkers that had been drawn on with a couple of Sharpies.

I was just glad that Jesse hadn't met her yet, as she was well… drop-dead gorgeous. In a creepy sort of way. That pale skin has nothing to do with her being a ghost, after all. The one flaw in her appearance was that she wore glasses. Oh, they were nice glasses; the kind that were rimless, so you could hardly tell they were there, but they were glasses none the less. I had asked why she didn't have contacts and she had responded, saying, "I like my glasses- they give me character. I _do_ have some contacts back home, but I only wear them on special occasions."

Mara was just so _annoying_ though. She kept popping up, just to be irritating. At that particular moment, when she had popped up again, I was working on my trig homework. She came over and looked over my shoulder, checking all my work. "You screwed up a bit on problems three and four," she pointed out. "And I have no idea what you were thinking on number eleven, because you'renot just out of the ball park- you're in a whole other field."

Fed up, I turned to her and snapped, "Just _why_ did you come _here_ of all places? Isn't there _something_ else better for you to do?"

She looked all mock-offend and replied, "Well, as a matter of fact, I _don't _have anything better to do. I just wanted to meet some of my fellow mediators."

"Well why can't you go bother Paul?"

She shook her head and answered, "Nah, he's hot and all, but he's strikes me as the type to jump a girl and stick his tongue in their throat." She has no idea how right she is. "And even if he did," she continued, "I'd be _way_ more than a fight for him, but I really don't feel like punching anybody out right now."

"Well, can you at least be useful and help me with this?" I said, referring to my homework.

"I'd be glad to," she said with a bow and sat down next to me. She may be irritating, but she _is_ a pretty good teacher. Eventually she got tired of hanging around and left, much to my relief. Unfortunately, when she reappeared again, it was at school, and around people I would've preferred not to have met Mara.

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AN- So… How'd ya like it? I had this idea a while back so I decided to give Mediator ff a try. Normally I comedy of the Harry Potter genre. So review and tell me how I'm doing.


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